I didn't expect to buy another new car this week.

[Telecaster]

The thing about negotiation is don’t take it personally. The dealer certainly doesn’t. The first one to say a price, loses; a very simple rule. Both parties start with outlandish prices, one high, one low, and meet in between. Take the deal or leave it, it’s just a car, not a spouse. There are millions of cars out there.

 

[Golddollar]

By some measures, I've spent stupid money fixing my old Tahoe. But I like it, and a lot better than the new ones. I consider repair cost vs book value to be irrelevant. I prefer to look at repair cost vs replacement cost.

A few $1000 to fix a car I like vs many $10,000 for a car I don't like? Easy decision for me.

I tend to keep my cars for a long time. When I think of a repair bill in terms of how many payments it represents on a new car paying for the repair to keep a good (and now no longer available) car running the repair bill doesn't look so bad.

 

[dave1918a2]

Not sure but I'll bet car salesmen around the world are all alike. The only time I tried to but a new truck I was trading in a car and a truck. When the salesman told Me the 'deal' He had, I stood up and very loudly said" You, Sir are nothing more than a thieving skunk! You are out of Your rabbit assed mind if You think You can cheat Me this way!!" My GF and I got up and walked out The people in the little salesman cubicles were all looking at Us. PS. I would never buy a Roo. Longtime shooter friend who owns a Roo shop told Me never buy a Roo, they cost too much to repair.

 

[Kiwi cop]

Kiwicop surely has had a few laughs with his post. Haven't you all noticed what country he's in? The game of car buying is very different in his country! So Yanks can't compare "the rules" any more than I can from my country.

In Kiwiland the sticker price is pretty much non-negotiable. The big negotiation is in the trade in value. Having said that, our first new off the showroom floor car was a 2015 Hyandai Accent that we got at cost, on road charges and taxes, as it was the third car the dealership had sold us, and Hyundai NZ had just upped the quota of new car sales required by dealers. It was near the end of the quarter and the dealership needed a few sales to meet the new quota. This was a very unusual situation though, personal relationship with the dealership finance manager played a big part.

The second new car from the same dealership (2017 Mazda CX-3) had been on the lot a few months, It had been on hold pending completion of a deal that fell through and was a special colour (red) that came at a small premium.

This was about 6 months after Karen's transplant and the sales manager knew we had been interested in a CX-3 in another colour that would take about 6 months to arrive. He offered it to us (again personal relationships played a big part), at he retail price it had been several months previously and less the colour premium.

The only reason we no longer deal with this business is that the purchase prices are how getting out of our price range. The MG prices are NZ$5-8,000 below the Mazda prices, which are still climbing. (We still get birthday and Christmas cards from both the sales and finance manager though ).

Dealers get a commission from finance companies at the time of purchase but nothing more (and commissions are falling under the current economic situation).

Given the increase in everything since September 2021 when we first bought the MG, NZ $1,000 (US$600) is way under what I imagined it would be.

We all know cars lose value once driven off the lot. to drop only NZ$8,000 (US$5,000) over 20 months is also less than I thought it would be (I was expecting NZ$38-39,000 as new purchase prices and $23-25,000 as a trade in).

Altogether we are very happy with our purchase.

 

[boykinlp]

I was very confused!

I thought you were talking about some iteration of this (picture below) like I had back in the late 1970’s.

But you were really talking about this:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMnhRjMq09M[/ame]

Looks nice to me, except the steering wheel needs to be moved!
Larry

 

[Rustyt1953]

Altogether we are very happy with our purchase.

And there you have it, folks.

 

[jeffrefrig]

I put a small scrape on my fender. Body shop wants $1500 to fix it. If I turn it into my insurance I lose my accident free and safe driving discounts which will cost me $71 more a month insurance costs. I don't want to shell out $1500 cash. My local car dealer will take my car in on trade with scrape toward a new like model. I have a 2022 and get a 23 for $29 more a month. Or I can put some touch up paint in it and forget it. Not sure what I want to do at this point.

Yeah, but does the touch up paint come with new car smell?

 

[grover99]

got some emails from the dealer I have dealing with for the last 15 years about how they can do this or that for me and cost me very little or no more money a month. I have bought 5 cars from them over the years and after some back and forth I came away with a price I could live with on each one. Not any more. The emails were a joke. Once you got down to the dealer the car you saw on line and wanted to deal for may show up in a couple of months or not and if it does they tell you how much will pay and thats it .No dealing at all. Touch up paint here I come. Not as nice as a new car put my bank account will be much better off.